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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22961632">Marks</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/em_gray/pseuds/em_gray'>em_gray</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>AU fic challenge [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue Series - Mackenzi Lee</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Magical Tattoos, Oh and there's also, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Suicidal Thoughts, and warning for all the canon stuff so</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 12:55:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,769</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22961632</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/em_gray/pseuds/em_gray</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a little AU where you get magical marks on your skin that give you hints about who your soulmate is.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Henry "Monty" Montague/Percy Newton</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>AU fic challenge [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1640491</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>70</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>TGGTVAV AU Challenge Fics</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Marks</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinstripedJackalope/gifts">pinstripedJackalope</a>.</li>


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22855147">The Number Twenty</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinstripedJackalope/pseuds/pinstripedJackalope">pinstripedJackalope</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>hi! so for this au I went with the tattoo concept from pinstripedJackalope's fic The Number Twenty, threw some soulmate stuff into the mix, let it boil for a bit, and here we are. Hope you enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>How long have I known that Monty is my soulmate?</p><p>Hard to say. There’s never been a single moment when I suddenly <em> knew </em> , just a slow, gradual realization. It started out as a suggestion, a joke, almost. Something <em> impossible </em>. But something, I realized, that I would like very much. Something… possible?</p><p>Years and years of watching signs, interpreting as <em> could be </em> , when the <em> unlikely </em> turned into a <em> maybe </em> , which slowly evolved toward a <em> likely </em> and a <em> probably </em>. And at this point I suppose not much else would make sense.</p><p>We’re taught pretty early what the marks appearing on our skins mean. Living things, they are, ink lines crawling across, forming pictures, some more clear than others, some more lasting than others. The briefest one I can recall is a tiny bird that flew across my shoulder once. Opposed to this, there’s one mark Monty’s had for as long as we both can remember: a violin and bow, in black lines drawn upon his left wrist.</p><p>Soulmate marks, are what they’re most commonly called. Little pictures and moving lines that give you hints about who your soulmate is, where they are, what they’re thinking, what they’re feeling. They form a veritable map on your body that might one day guide you to the person you’re meant to be with, though a rather unclear map. There’s no such thing as surety you end up with the right person, and there’s an awful lot of subjective interpreting involved, but most people who end up finding their soulmate claim they’re absolutely sure.</p><p>Though it is a pretty sore subject in higher classes. Superstition of the common people, it’s called, meaningless frivolities filling the hearts of the desperate. Marriage is meant to be a thing of reason. This is one of the reasons why aristocrats tend to powder their skins a perfect white, covering up all the marks of things that are so very below them.</p><p>Monty, however, <em> adores </em> the marks. He tells me every time he gets a new one, or when an old one disappears. It’s also one of his favorite flirting techniques: showing his marks to strangers at the bar and making up stories about how they could refer to the person he’s talking to.</p><p>At that point, I usually empty my drink, feign a headache, and go home.</p><p>But back to the question. Interpreting the marks as if they referred to Monty started as a game, a thing of curiosity. My guesses were vague at first, but as time went on, things added up more and more, to the point it became frightening.</p><p>Let’s see. What do I recall?</p><p>Most times when I play him my fiddle, I can see music notes on staves curling around his arms. It’s hard to ignore, so I usually shut my eyes, and when the song has ended, they vanish just as quickly.</p><p>Monty started to use ‘darling’ as a general pet name somewhere in his Eton days. I believe the first time he called me that was when he was home for Christmas during his first year, and after that, he scattered the little word all over the letters he sent me. A month and a half later, I found it written on the inside of my right lower arm, in his handwriting. It’s there to this day, and because of its location, Monty is very much aware of its existence and likes to tease me with it.</p><p>“You have no other choice than to fall in love with me one day, darling,” he’ll joke, making me go bright red. “It’s written in the stars.”</p><p>Speaking of Monty’s Eton days - not much after he started writing about his enamoration with Sinjon, a pair of vividly blue eyes appeared on my arm, sometimes blinking slowly. It drove me out of my mind. Unlike the letters he sent, the mark I couldn’t burn, so I wrapped a bandage around it and claimed it was an injury.</p><p>I’m not sure exactly when they went away. I didn’t look under the wrappings until a bit after Monty returned from Eton. They were gone, then.</p><p>After Monty told me he wanted to die, black and blue and broken, lying on his back in the gardens, and after I gave him five reasons not to, new reasons kept appearing on his skin in my handwriting for at least a month. Those were some of the few marks he didn’t instantly tell me about.</p><p>And then there’s the restless black lines that curl all over me, around my fingers and my neck and trembling as the warning I came to know them as. An expression of Monty’s fear, they are, every time he knows his father is going to hit him, and almost every time, they’re followed by brightly colored shapes and figures wherever the punches landed. If he notices how well they match with his bruises, he doesn’t mention it - though he’s usually in no state to when we see each other again.</p><p>There are a million other small things that confirm my suspicions: the little ship that used to sail across my back and abdomen when the two of us still played pirates a lot, how I can beat him at cards most of the time because the cards he’s holding usually appear on my palm, flowers and bottles of spirits and a little blue bird in a golden cage that has a habit of appearing on my ankle. The list is endless, and every new picture is equal parts reassuring and painful. Reassuring to know that something out there is confirming how I feel. Hopeful that Monty’s marks might mean he feels the same way about me. Painful because… the odds of us ever ending up together are slim.</p><p>Very few people end up with their soulmate, and Monty and I have more odds against us than most.</p><p> </p><p>The day we leave for the Continent, I notice an hourglass has appeared above my heart. It’s still well filled, and the sand is running slowly - but it <em> is </em> running.</p><p>Which is exactly the omen I need when I’m already panicking as much as I am.</p><p> </p><p>The first time I veritably forget about the precious little time I have left with Monty happens after we’re a month in Paris. We’re at a music hall, I’m drunk, and our hands and mouths are abso-bloody-lutely all over each other. I’ve never felt so fantastic in my entire life, and during the brief instances when I open my eyes, I can see inked vines full of flowers curling and blooming over our skins - a feast of color and beauty. It’s perfect, everything is perfect, until-</p><p>Until I realize that I don’t actually know how Monty feels about me. And doing this without being absolutely sure he feels the same way… I don’t think my heart could take it.</p><p>That conversation ends with the first time in my life that I’m not sure how happy I am about Monty being my soulmate.</p><p>When we’re on our way home, I’ve not felt this miserable in a long while. Avoiding eye contact, I focus on the flowers that bloomed on my hands. They’re starting to wilt.</p><p> </p><p>By the time we attend the party at Versailles, both of us are still covered in rotten vines and miserable petals. It’s hard to look at Monty, hard to stick close by, but at the same time I feel like I might drown in this party if I took a step from his side. We still part in anger.</p><p>I know that something is wrong when I see tiny discarded items of clothing appear on my arm. I roll up my sleeve, following the trail with my eyes. Around my elbow, I see a silhouette running by, hedges in the background. I head out to the gardens, Felicity on my trail, dread filling me up.</p><p>And, unsurprisingly, but still deeply disappointingly, we find Monty there. Without any of his clothes.</p><p> </p><p>The next morning, Lockwood announces the sudden ending to our Tour. When I’m getting changed for the final part of our trip to Marseilles, I notice that the hourglass on my chest is broken, all of the sand spilling out at the bottom.</p><p> </p><p>The next few lonely nights we spend in inns, I study a curious little drawing that has appeared on my upper arm. It looks like a wooden box, a fancy one, at that, with white dials.</p><p>It doesn’t occur to me to wonder what on Earth it might have to do with Monty until we’re ambushed by highwaymen, demanding us that we return a certain ‘boîte volée’. When Felicity asks after our escape if any of us is smuggling anything, I roll up my sleeve and point at the picture. “Something that happens to look a lot like this?” I say, with a pointed glance at Monty, who gasps in understanding.</p><p>While he’s digging in his pockets, I see Felicity is giving us strange looks. I realize that up until this point, I’ve likely been the only person who’s known that my soulmate marks are a direct reference to Monty, and I’ve spilled that secret rather carelessly. She doesn’t say anything of it, though, and is completely distracted when Monty presents the box in question.</p><p>It’s not until we’re walking the rest of the way to Marseilles that I realize Monty didn’t react with any surprise, either.</p><p> </p><p>I’m still tracing the vines on my arms - by now almost entirely vanished - while I’m lying on the bed on the boat, feeling as terrible as ever, when Monty enters. I tell him everything. Not because I think either of us will feel better after this conversation, but I don’t exactly have a choice.</p><p>“Two years,” Monty suddenly says.</p><p>He’s cut me off in the middle of a sentence, and I’m still feeling drowsy, so I don’t catch on to it right away. “...What?”</p><p>“This has been… happening to you for two years now, hasn’t it?”</p><p>I stare at him. “How did you know?”</p><p>Many things go through my head. <em> Didn’t I hide it well enough? </em> and <em> When did he catch on to it? </em> and <em> Did I sell him short by believing he’d be too self-absorbed to notice? </em> but he interrupts my stream of thoughts. “That’s how long I’ve been getting these… marks.”</p><p>He rolls up his sleeves, and interwoven with the vines that he also still has, lines stretch out, patterns like lightning. They’re fading in front of my eyes.</p><p>“The first time happened while I was at Eton,” he says. “After that, it’s been… once every few months. I never knew what they meant, until-”</p><p>And I don’t know how to feel about that. That something - our <em> bond </em> - has been tipping him off, and that he might’ve known damn well it had something to do with me, but that he-</p><p>“What did you think they meant?” I mean it to be a genuine question, but the fatigue is making my voice spike in all the wrong places.</p><p>And Monty jumps on the defense. “How was I supposed to know?”</p><p>And I am so, <em> so </em> tired of him being <em> him </em>, that my reply has left me before I can stop it: “Right. I forgot your only concern is yourself.”</p><p>The rest of the conversation goes just as poorly.</p><p> </p><p>When Monty finds me curled up in a gambling hall in Barcelona, trying to focus on only my breathing as the sweat soaks my clothes, his question of “What’s wrong? Is it…? Are you about to…?” is instantly followed by him rolling up his sleeves and checking his arms. He doesn’t seem to find anything, because he turns his attention back to me.</p><p>“I don’t know,” I reply honestly.</p><p>He guides me outside, to a courtyard, and when I’m feeling a little better, we return to the Robleses’ house. Monty does a valiant attempt at making tea, and then joins me on the couch.</p><p>“I’m all right now,” I say after a while, warming my hands on the teacup.</p><p>“Oh. ...Good.”</p><p>“Thank you.”</p><p>“I didn’t do anything.”</p><p>“You stayed.”</p><p>“That wasn’t much.”</p><p>“Monty, I have never once woken from a fit and found the people who were there when it began still with me. My aunt has quite literally run from the room when I said I was feeling unwell. And I know it didn’t happen now, but… no one stays.”</p><p>I’m not sure why I do it. It feels like some force stronger than myself compels me to. I put my teacup on the table, take his hand in mine and squeeze.</p><p>Almost right away, a vine curls around our wrists, making its way to our fingers, where it blooms into a rose. I know Monty’s watching it, too. Neither of us shows any surprise.</p><p>I swallow. “So… How long have you known?”</p><p>He shrugs. “Hard to say. It’s always been more of something I’ve hoped than something I’ve known.” A corner of his mouth tugs up. “I wasn’t sure until you confirmed it.”</p><p>A silence falls over us, and I notice I’m smiling. Monty lifts his head and looks me in the eye. He’s about to say something, when I suddenly smell something burning.</p><p>Not much after that, Dante and Felicity arrive, and our conversation is forgotten in its entirety.</p><p> </p><p>I’m not about to claim I know how soulmate bonds or marks work. That doesn’t stop me from trying to will some mark into existence, any mark, to help Monty and I through as he’s locked away in the prison. Whether it’s a mark to let him know that I’m thinking about him, or a mark to let me know that he’s okay, I don’t care. Nothing’s showing up at my side, anyway, and the hour passes by at a snail’s pace. When he’s back, his nose is bloody and his cheek bruised. He’s acting stoic and blunt all the way home, and when I try to make sure he’s okay, he snaps at me until I leave him alone.</p><p>Which is what I intend to do - leave him to cool off until at least morning, while I try to make sense of the whirlwind of emotions in my head - but something gets in the way of that plan.</p><p>A drawing of a key, barely the size of my thumb, appearing in my palm.</p><p>And I know I have to go find him.</p><p> </p><p>My veins are still faintly tinted black when Monty comes by. In the following days, it vanishes some more, but I can still tell it’s there, just like I can tell Monty’s not entirely feeling better yet. He’s having a particularly hard time during our weeks as stowaways, the aftermath of the poisoning not matching very well with the swaying of the tide.</p><p>One night, I join Monty as he’s on the lookout. It’s unlikely we’ll be discovered down here, but it’s not worth the risk. Felicity’s asleep, and aside from the creaking of the wood and the howling of the wind outside, it’s silent.</p><p>I’m not sure how or why we start talking about the marks we’ve had in the past. I mention the pair of blue eyes, expecting an apology, but Monty thinks it’s hilarious. He, in turn, tells me that his violin mark sometimes plays him songs.</p><p>I don’t believe him.</p><p>“I swear!” he says. “Only at night, though. And really quietly. But it’s true. Usually songs you’ve played for me earlier that day. Sometimes songs you play for me the next day.”</p><p>Casually discussing the fact that we’re soulmates feels so natural. At the same time, it’s a problem, because I have no idea how to trace back from this to a confession. As I search for words, my fingers trail the hints of vines mindlessly. It’s become a habit, these past few weeks, something grounding and reassuring.</p><p>“You still have them, too?” Monty asks.</p><p>I nod. He pulls back his sleeve and takes my hand in his, our arms pressed together. It doesn’t take much imagination to pretend that together, they form a complete pattern.</p><p>“Why did you ask me to stop?” he asks after a while. There’s no accusation in his tone. It’s just a simple question.</p><p>I make a meaningless gesture with the hand that’s not linked with his. “Because you said it didn’t mean anything to you,” I say.</p><p>He turns his head. “Really? That was the only reason?”</p><p>I nod.</p><p>He leans back, head resting against the wood, and I veritably hear him chuckle. “I am such an <em> imbecile </em>.”</p><p>“Oh, please, do elaborate.”</p><p>“Percy…” He sits up, letting go of my hand - which feels like far too meaningful a gesture in such a vulnerable moment - and cups my face with his palms. “Percy, darling. It did mean something to me. It meant… <em> everything </em>. But I didn’t say that, because I was stupid and afraid and I… I regret it deeply. So I’d like to take it back.”</p><p>I blink at him. My breathing feels too calm for the way my heart is racing. We’re inches apart, and I can’t look anywhere but into his eyes.</p><p>I swallow. “You mean it?”</p><p>“I do. I swear that I do. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted, Percy.” His eyes are lidded. “What do you want?”</p><p>I’m biting my lip, eyes flitting down to his mouth without meaning to. A corner of his mouth tugs up, and then he touches his nose to mine, and I’ve decided I’m going to do it. I close my eyes-</p><p>Above us, a cannon goes off.</p><p> </p><p>As the pirate captain takes Monty away with him, I fight and shout with everything I have in me. When it’s no use, I try to check for any marks appearing on me, any indication Monty might be hurt and I’ll have to commit some act of impossible heroism to avenge him. Minutes last days before he’s finally thrown into the same cabin as we’re being held.</p><p> </p><p>Our time spent on route to Venice with the pirates - who turn out to be not so bad, after all - are a welcome breather after everything we’ve been through. Especially now Monty and I are on the same page when it comes to our sentiments toward one and other. It’s not easy to act on them on a crowded ship, but we start a little game of trying to get things across through marks.</p><p>“I don’t think it works that way,” I say, though I’m happy to join in.</p><p>When we finally get a moment alone, wandering away at the carnival in Venice, I’m soaring. When we take off our masks in a deserted alleyway, mine is still imprinted on his face and the other way around. It makes us laugh, and Monty presses a few kisses to the edges of the mark on my face before it fades.</p><p>And then we’re kissing, and then we’re fighting, and as I head back, my head still pounding with anger, I wonder, quite without meaning to, if loving him is always going to be so difficult.</p><p>A statement that suddenly turns into a sinking stone when I hear Monty’s been kidnapped, sinking deeply and filling me up with guilt, guilt, guilt.</p><p>And I hate myself for ever thinking such a thing, for ever considering not to love him, no matter how difficult it may be. For thinking I could ever do anything <em> but </em> love him.</p><p>As we sail toward the sinking island, a compass appears on the back of my hand. There are no traditional directions inscribed on it, just an arrow and a single letter: a fine <em> M </em> to replace the <em> N </em>.</p><p> </p><p>Ink symbolizing blood drips from my ear and falls on my hand without passing through the air. I’m half dragging, half carrying Monty toward the boat as the island collapses behind us. When we’re finally drifting away, Felicity’s on the lookout for the Elefteria, but my full attention is on Monty, who’s been <em> shot </em> and bleeding and my hand gets soaked while I’m pressing his hand to the wound and I’m thinking <em> oh God I’m going to lose him I’m going to lose my soulmate and the last thing we did was fight- </em></p><p>He’s unconscious for far too long. I want to stay by his side while Felicity saves his life, but I’m kicked out as I’m close to fainting myself. Scipio stays with me while I wait, trying to calm me down, but the love of my life, my <em> soulmate </em> is in there and he might damn well be dying-</p><p>Felicity finally lets me in when she’s done. Her hands are - disturbingly - drenched in blood, and when I storm into the cabin I am fully convinced to find Monty dead, but he’s just… sleeping. His head is mostly covered in bandages, but aside from that, he looks peaceful.</p><p>I wake at his side, until the fatigue catches up with me. I haven’t noticed I’ve fallen asleep until Monty wakes me.</p><p>It turns out he’s completely lost his hearing in one ear. As I sit down with him and take him in my arms, he points out a new mark that’s appeared on the side of my face. Over top of my ear, a rose has blossomed, its vines stretching out across my face in what would later turn out to be a perfect mirror of Monty’s scars.</p><p> </p><p>We’re standing up to our waists in the ocean, arms overtop of each other to steady us in the tide, watching the tiny image of the Eleftheria sail across the waves on our skins. Monty’s feeling better, and even though it took me a while, I’ve calmed down with the notion he will <em> not </em> be dying on me any time soon.</p><p>He proposes to run away with me.</p><p>“No, Monty-” I start, “I shouldn’t have asked that from you. It was unfair, and too much, and I wasn’t thinking straight, and-”</p><p>“I want to.”</p><p>I shut up in surprise.</p><p>“More than anything in the world. Let’s do it. Let’s run away together.”</p><p>We kiss, and for once, we don’t fight after it. We just spend the rest of the day together, and after the most insane summer of my life, I finally feel at peace, and truly, <em> genuinely </em> happy.</p><p>When I’m about to go to sleep, I notice that the hourglass is no longer broken. It’s mended with thin golden veins. But it’s not running anymore: it’s containing and overgrown with the most beautiful flowers.</p><p>Cracked and mended with lacquer and flakes of gold.</p><p>And I realize that we have plenty of time.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><div class="children module" id="children">
  <b class="heading">Works inspired by this one:</b>
  <ul>
    <li>
        <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23032678">The God of Lost Souls</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinstripedJackalope/pseuds/pinstripedJackalope">pinstripedJackalope</a>
    </li>
  </ul>
</div></div></div>
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